Early this year, Honeycomb (Android 3.0) launched for tablets. Although Honeycomb remains tablets-only, the upcoming Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS) release will support big screens, small screens, and everything in between. This is the way Android will stay from now on: the same version runs on all screen sizes.

Some Honeycomb apps assume that they’ll run only on a large screen, and have baked that into their designs. This assumption is currently true, but will become false with the arrival of ICS, because Android apps are forward-compatible — an app developed for Honeycomb is compatible with a device running ICS, which could be a tablet, a phone, or something else.

Android developers who want to optimize their Android applications for smartphones or tablets after the upcoming Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS) release, should learn more about it from the official blog.